Wednesday, August 6, 2014

RPGaDay6: Favorite RPG I Never Get to Play

Talislanta. Hands down.

My fav Talislanta cover, 3rd edition

Matter of fact, one of my favorite settings, that I have only played one time, ever, since 1989. With all the books being free online at www.talislanta.com, I would hope that somebody else would throw on the mantle and take us around the continent.

No clue what I would play, would be easier to list off the archetypes I would not want to play. With over 100 different character archetypes in 4th edition, or the character generation system in 5th edition, I am absolutely sure that I would find something.

I love the system. It is quick and simple, with plenty of room for gritty, horror, action/adventure or mystery play, but I am the only one to run it.

I have recently reached out to my gaming group to see if anyone else would like to run it, keeping my fingers crossed!

Talislanta, for those unfamiliar, is set in a world that has been ripped asunder (literally) by magical forces. It has been 600 years since history was starting to be rewritten, and adventure abounds!

The game lends itself well to sword and sorcery, dungeon crawls, exploration, horror, mercantile and even comedy adventures without losing spirit of the game.

Talislanta ad, circa 1990

The tagline is "Still No Elves!" A 20th anniversary shout out to the old ads in Shadis, White Wolf and Dragon magazines.

Talislanta was definitely a fore-runner in system elegance, with many of the systems mechanics showing directly in the d20 system from Wizards of the Coast. No surprise when you look at the names that worked on 3rd and 4th edition and the names in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 books.

System-wise, Talislanta easily ranks in the Top 5 of my Top 10 favorite games of all time.

If you have never checked it out, I highly recommend it. Even if you decide that Talislanta is not your game, what you do find there is easily converted to other games.

I have used creatures from Talislanta in Star Frontiers, AD&D, Star Wars and SLA Industries, and each time, it was a wonderful experience.

If there is a drawback to the game, it is also its biggest feature: an alien setting without the normal fantasy races and structures that we are accustomed. Highly detailed, the game itself is presented as both an authoritative work on an alien world, and a game system.